


In the Land of Gods and Monsters

by balrock



Series: Immortality and Other Ways to Die [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Introspection, Ishval Civil War, aftermath of war, death and destruction, religious theory, strange imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:07:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22999690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balrock/pseuds/balrock
Summary: Ishval — May 13th 1908He had run as fast as he could, as far as he could, until he reached the edge of the desert. He could still hear the screaming ricocheting through his head and the roar of the inferno in the distance.There were no faces, he hadn’t gotten close enough for that — he wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.
Series: Immortality and Other Ways to Die [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652902
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	In the Land of Gods and Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Ishval — May 13th 1908

He had run as fast as he could, as far as he could, until he reached the edge of the desert. 

He could still hear the screaming ricocheting through his head and the roar of the inferno in the distance as he fell to his knees — still burning six days later. The white of his gloves was red, even though the blood was not physically there, he could see it, he could feel it — warm and sticky and thick, already congealing. 

There were no faces, he hadn’t gotten close enough for that — he wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. 

The one thing worse than death is to avert your eyes from it. Look straight at the people you kill. Don't take your eyes off them for a second. And don't ever forget them, because I promise that they won't forget you.

Kimblee’s words echoed and gained a twisted quality in his mind, dripping with blood and terrified screams; scorched and scorned.

Sobs and tears destroyed Roy without his consent, stuck in memories of the last days, weeks, months — he couldn’t remember how long he’d been out in the desert.

Roy had razed the Ishvalan district of Gunja to the ground... and he’d left no survivors. He’d barely even questioned his orders, he’d just gone and done it; now, nausea twisted his stomach and knotted his intestines. He couldn’t breathe without smelling burning flesh and blood — he heaved but only bile came up, burning him, and Roy wished that it was acidic enough to melt his throat so that he could no longer breathe — so he could die then and there, taking the secrets of flame alchemy with him. 

Belatedly, he remembered the cool weight strapped to his side; it fit awkwardly in his hand, bigger than he remembered, heavier. Or maybe it was just heavy with what he was about to do, heavy with potential and dread and utter relief.

The barrel was surprisingly warm against the underside of his chin and he shivered in to cold of the desert twilight. The stars were fading with the new light and he thought with morbid amusement that he would be able to fade away with them.

He squeezed, but nothing happened. Pulling it back to inspect it, he realized he’d forgotten to switch off the safety. Slowly, he did so and placed it back in position. 

He realized, with the soft clattering of the gun, that his hands were shaking, breath coming out fast and shallow, sweat pooled in the bow of his upper lip. His finger twitched, but before he could send the signal to finally end it to his finger, a movement in the periphery caught his eye and he instinctively turned to face it.

Something was approaching from the desert, perhaps an Ishvalan coming for revenge, but the nearer the figure got, the more confused Roy became — the figure seemed to shift forms between that of a boy and a very large jackal. Surely he must be going crazy if he was seeing shape shifters in the middle of the desert?

He watched as the being came closer.

Didn’t Ishvalans believe that jackals are the messengers of Ishvala? That the larger they are the more power they have, the closer to divinity they were? That only Ishvala themself could shift between forms? 

Roy’s mind was going around in circles and he couldn’t remember if he’d read that somewhere or if his brain was making things up.

As the figure got closer, their form solidified into travel robes and golden hair; face covered by the skull of a jackal and eyes that reflected the light of the rising sun and the inferno — flickering between the red-gold of the flames behind and the sheen of night. About twenty yards away from Roy, the figure stopped, the mask dropping from their ageless face to thud quietly in the sand, tears streaming down their cheeks as they stared at the wreckage that was once called Gunja.

Only silence remained, it seemed, when those eyes turned to Roy’s. They held no accusation, no hatred, only a pained kind of understanding and a plea not no do it. Roy realized something in that moment, looking into those world weary eyes — killing himself would do nothing, would mean nothing. Nothing would change, the world would keep turning, new days would continue to dawn, just like this one, and those that had died here would have died for nothing. 

The red sands would still be red — they would be until the end of time — but there would be no equivalency, their lives spent would be forfeit and those who carried out the massacre would walk free. 

Maybe... maybe he could do something about it. Maybe, he didn’t know how, but maybe he could change this country for the better, so that there could never again be such injustice as the extermination of Ishval.

A hand touched his and he jumped, a lone shot sounding off into the night. He flinched for the impact and the pain, but it never came.

The figure had the skull once again placed over their face and had had the foresight to point the gun away from his face and out into the sands; he could see the barrel smoking and smell the sizzling tang of metal and powder. The gun’s weight was pried from his hand with coaxing fingers, and fell to the sand, dust and a small crater rising up around it. 

He stared at those guilt ridden eyes until his vision blurred and he was screaming and pounding the icy sand beneath him, control gone along with his sanity. He sobbed, mourning and guilty for the lives he had taken, for the blood that was on his hands but wasn’t — until his energy left him and all he could do was let the darkness finally take him in. 

Roy awoke to the heat of the mid-morning sun and the sand burning his skin, alone. He scrambled for the gun, once again tucked neatly inside its holster, to check the chamber — he had to know if it was all a dream. The chamber was full, but one bullet was different than the rest — striated from the friction of passing through the rifling.

The rain came out of nowhere, clouds rolling in with the speed of a sandstorm, and released their sorrow and wisdom upon the land. It calmed the fires that ravaged Gunja until they were no more than sizzling steam and heated rock. Rain symbolizes a cleansing, a renewal, a moment to rejoice in the miracles of life and seek wisdom from the gods — for during rainfall and storms the earth has contact with the heavens as water is the carrier of truth for all deities. 

In the distance, voices rejoiced with jubilation, not realizing that the rain fell black on their skin — the ashes of those who would have retribution and justice for the tragedy that had befallen their peaceful home; the ashes of those who perished in the firestorm, few of thousands — because at last the war was over and it has not yet occurred to them what fate they have helped doom their loyalty and countrymen. 

Few saw the black rain in the distance and wept for that which they lost, that which they had left behind. 

Few saw the black rain turning blue and gold to ash and betrayal — for were these people not also part of those they swore to protect? — and let the grief and guilt mangle their hearts and embitter their minds. 

Some — incredibly few — of the soldiers left saw this black rain and knew what it would have meant for the people they’d had a hand in destroying. There are many legends about fire and ashes, and only few of the mixing of ash in water; both are tales of renewal and rebirth, however, one depicts how cycles are doomed to repeat and how easy it is to become stuck in them, while the other teaches that with the right wisdom the sands of time will not simply flow through fingers but that it is malleable and not entirely unresistant to change.

The future of this country with its wretched government could be changed given time; Roy realized, as he sat there, staring at the bullet that could have been his end, that things occur because to every effect there is a cause, no matter how insignificant that cause may seem — like butterfly wings, his mind supplied, an old adage his mother had told him when he was young. No event is ever random, it just seems to be so because humans are not omniscient, they cannot see into the minds and lives of those around them. 

He knew exactly the events that caused him to end up at the edge of the desert ready to spill yet more red on most likely sacred land.

However, the young man-jackal-deity-vision-hallucination — whatever they were-are-will be — happened to be in the right place at the right time seemingly by chance, only it wasn’t. There were events that led to them being there at that time, and if any one of them had happened differently then Roy would likely be dead. Dead by the bullet he held in his hand. 

Fate wasn’t something he’d ever really considered before, logic immediately deemed it to be supernatural and unworthy of time and energy — however, fate as the inevitable ending of a person’s consciousness was something he had pondered many times — and yet, complete free will is an illusion. Most people saw the world in absolutes: if it is not one thing, then it must be the other. Only, that’s rarely ever true. 

When he’d come running out into the desert, he’d thought he’d chosen a random direction — as long as it was away from the hellfire and demons and manifestations of his sins — but he’d already proved that nothing truly happens by chance. 

There had been something compelling him to come out here, now that he really thought about it, a tug or a guiding hand — or maybe Roy had just finally lost it, that this was the thing that finally broke him. Not his parents’ deaths, not any of the times when he was younger and living in the Rouge of Central, not when he was at the academy and saw just how much racism and pettiness went hand in hand with arrogance, not even a few short weeks — that felt like eternities — ago when the enemy suddenly wore the face of one of his best friends and was shot down by Hughes to protect Roy. 

No, it was none of those things.

It was his hands — his two small hands that held his mother as she took her last breath, that clasped on to Maes’ like an equal and grasped like a lifeline — that caused such destruction and took hundreds, thousands of lives. His fingers that snapped — such a small movement, like butterflies’ wings — and created hell on earth, an inferno of devastation. A desolation. 

His gloves, which caused the spark that catalyzed the combustion, now soaked and useless. 

The material, normally thick and rough, was now pliant, sticking to his skin and squelching in his fist. Just like the day, near the beginning of all this, months ago, when all he could do was stand there, unable to protect those under his command from an ambush, and watch them drop like flies. 

And yet. 

And yet, he hadn’t died that day, or any day since. 

And yet, even when it was his own hand that sought his life he was spared. 

Why?

Why should he, with the things he had done, live while thousands of innocent people be fated to die?

Why—

Why him?

Why Roy?

Because I am responsible, and so I must take responsibility. 

Was that his voice? God’s? Ishvala’s? Fate’s? Theirs?

Or maybe it was the voice of no one — and everyone. 

Perhaps it was the universe. 

Roy likes to think it was the rain. He likes to think that the rain knows before he does that something is not meant to be. That it is a last resort, if his self-control has gone out the window. 

He stared up into the rain, long since the torrent grew gentle, and knew he had a long and treacherous path ahead of him. 

That was how Maes found him: soaked to the bone and staring at the sky with a used bullet clutched in his hands like the answer to a prayer. 

He’d always wondered what had happened, out there in the desert. Wondered what had made Roy determined to make it to the top and change Amestris. Somedays, he thinks that Roy wants to change this country so that he can finally die; others, Roy seems to understand that just making it to the top and changing the country for the better is a lifelong project and is content with that. 

There are times he catches Roy looking at that bullet he keeps with his tags under his uniform, and, though they made it through the thick of it — the nightmares and the stress-trauma-paranoia — sometimes Maes can’t help but worry that if Roy truly decides that death is the only way nothing will stop him. 

Every now and then, he sees those depthless eyes of a killer reappear just below the surface and wonders what happened out there, in the desert. 

But Maes never asks, and Roy never tells.


End file.
